From: De Volkskrant (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Volkskrant Science Editor Maarten Keulemans explains [translated from the original in Dutch] why so many girls are screaming for boy bands like One Direction: “Evolutionary biologists like Geoffrey Miller (famous for his book The Mating Mind) and David Buss (The Evolution of Human Mating) believe that boy bands are young men showcasing their fitness by dancing and singing, much as male birds attract mates… [Others believe that] for girls at the beginning of puberty, a boy band [allows them] to experiment with romantic love, without sex…
“Researchers Tim Kasser and Yuna Engle from Knox College in Illinois wrote in the Journal of Adolescent Research that… the worship of boy bands is a ‘rite of passage for adolescents [that] involves important matters, as young women develop their value systems and interpersonal relationships’…” Read more…
From: NPR (Washington, DC)
The Associated Press is protesting what it calls a massive and unprecedented intrusion into its gathering of news. The target of that wrath is the U.S. Justice Department, which secretly collected phone records for several AP reporters last year. The AP says it’s caught in the middle of a Justice Department leak investigation.
The scope of the Justice Department subpoenas is what gives [1974 Knox graduate] David Schulz, a lawyer for AP, pause. “It was a very large number of records that were obtained, including phone records from Hartford, New York, Washington, from the U.S. House of Representatives and elsewhere where AP has bureaus. It included home and cellphone numbers from a number of AP reporters,” Schulz says… Read more…
From: Business of Cinema (Mumbai, India)
Bollywood’s first-ever zom-com, or zombie comedy, ‘Go Goa Gone’ is all set to hit theatres this weekend [opening May 10 in India]. And [2002 Knox grad] Vir Das revealed that he loved doing improv while shooting ‘Go Goa Gone’.
“All credit to my directors Raj and DK who allowed me to go all the way,” said Vir. “I want to do things differently and based on my act on stage, I know that 9 out of 10 times it would work for a film as well. I am an actor who loves to improvise and one thing that I love most is to deliver my lines differently.”…
“When I came to India, there was no audience for stand-up comedians. Still, I managed to create some market for that. Now same holds good for a zomcom like ‘Go Goa Gone’….” Read more…
Update on opening day coverage… Times of India: ” Vir Das and Kunal Khemu are hilarious characters and share perfect comic chemistry.” … Koimoi Inside Bollywood: “an unabashedly crazy film with Vir Das and Kunal Khemu delivering super performances.”
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
In conjunction with the Great American Cleanup, various Knox College organizations and students spread across Galesburg Saturday morning, beautifying the city as they went.
Although the main focus of this year’s cleanup program was freeing Galesburg of trash and litter, some groups took on different projects of landscaping, home repair, planting trees and other various jobs.
“This is a really busy time on a college campus. We’re hurdling towards the end of the term and graduation. The fact that so many kids would still come out today is a great thing,” said Knox College President Teresa Amott… Read more…
Judy Woodruff of PBS Newshour talks with [Knox College graduate] David Schulz, legal counsel for the Associated Press, about the procedures for accessing information from the news media about confidential sources, what constitutes “crossing the line” by the government and whether the current investigation was justified by the gravity of the situation.
As much as we’re looking forward to hearing what current and former presidents, major CEOs and acclaimed journalists have to say this graduation season, let’s be honest: The celebrity commencement speeches are the ones everyone will be talking about…